Don't get me wrong it's a part of the game, but to RELY on it? Combos are what I am focusing on soon and then at the very end frame trapping defensive fighters.
My argument is that you aren't going to catch many of the top players frame trapping often for it to be some sort of strategy that you should focus on before everything else.
Thats not exactly true. In marvel and guilty I've caught some excellent players in frame traps. Its a very human reaction to try to test exactly how real someones pressure is. Against good players frame traps are at most times the only real way to open them up especially in street fighter. How do you think characters like Bison open people up. Its definitely not his mixups. Combos are most times the easiest thing to learn in a game, especially street fighter. And even if you aren't opening people up with frame traps just the fact you know how advantageous they are on everything they do is a huge help as far as defense.
You can easily base your entire gameplan on frame traps tbh